Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore stated publicly last week that cost cutting measures are the only reason why the embassy will shut down early next year.

Gilmore has said that the government will save almost a million dollars by closing the facility in the Vatican. The embassy in Tehran and a consulate in East Timor are also to close.

Religious leaders in Ireland and Rome have slammed the decision to end diplomatic relations with the Vatican however as relations worsen between Church and State after a series of child sex abuse scandals.

The Pope himself is said to have been annoyed by the announcement, just months after the Vatican’s row with Prime Minister Enda Kenny over the Cloyne report into clerical sex abuse in the Cork diocese.